Pellet stoves are a must have in todays costly home heating environment. The best thing about pellet stoves is they provide the ability to choose which heat source you use based on cost. Personally I have natural gas forced air heat and a pellet stove, I run the forced air heat when I am at work or away for long periods of time. Then when I have home I run the pellet stove. The pellet stove affords me the opportunity to keep the house warmer and not have a huge heating bill at the end of the month.

Generally I will buy 4 ton of pellets over the summer when the prices are the cheapest, I usually only burn about 3 ton per winter and have the other ton as backup.

Wood Burning Pellet Stoves

Wood burning pellet stoves are a great heat source, they offer the ability to heat your house with a wood fire but do not require cutting wood or buying wood. You simply buy bags of pellets, often these pellets are in 40 pound bags and come in 1 ton or 1 and 1/2 ton pallets. Ideally you want to have a pickup truck to transport these from the store to your garage.

What are wood burning pellets made from?

Pellets are made from scrap wood material, usually they come from flooring manufacturers, lumber mills or any other place that produces large amounts of saw dust. When pellets are in high demand or saw dust is in short supply pellet mills may even turn to cutting down standing timber and grinding it up into sawdust to make pellets with. This isn't ideal because it is more expensive for the pellet mill.

If you are looking for a top quality pellet stove for a very reasonable price I would recommend England's Stove #55-SHP22 Pellet Stove.  This stove is a free standing pellet stove which allows you to position it directly vented on just about any outside wall.

The extra large hopper is 60 lbs, this ensures you can place a lot of pellets in the hopper and have to add more pellets less frequently.

The heating capactity is one of the highest in the large pellet stove market at 2,200 sq ft, this will heat most average size homes without the need for any supplimental heating.  My house is in Buffalo NY known for some of the coldest and worst areas in winter time and my pellet stove keeps my house at around 70 degrees F in the coldest of weather when on the medium setting.

Last but not least is the electric auto start which eliminates the need for any starting tools or gels.

Where do I install my pellet stove?

Your pellet stove can be installed either in an existing fireplace, this is called a pellet stove insert or it can be a free standing unit. Either will work fine. Free standing units can be vented out an exterior wall, pellet stove vents can be vertical or horizontal.

Pellet Stove Fuel - What Can I Burn In My Pellet Stove?

Pellet stoves can burn corn, wood pellets, cherry pits and even pellets made of grass. Be sure to check with your specific manufacturer as not all stoves can burn everything listed above. For example, my Lopi Yankee stove can only burn wood pellets. If you run the wrong fuel through your stove you could void the warranty and even seriously harm your stove.

Some of these fuels will produce more ash and/or clinkers than others.

The Worst Pellet Stove On The Market?

This is a questions I get all the time, I would have to say the worst pellet stoves I have run accross are sold by the big box stores, not always because of the quality of the stoves(but some are terrible quality), it really is the lack of sales and service.  The employees at these stores know very little about the stoves. If two years from now something breaks on your stove who do you call, often a pellet stove service company is not anywhere near where you are.  It also may be hard to find any pellet stove parts.